I had a really fun conversation with another author this week during one of his upcoming podcasts (I'll say more about that when I know the release date). As we talked about my past and the years I spent as a pastor and counselor, he asked how I am able to create my nasty villains [...]
I want to begin by saying that I do not "eavesdrop". However, I do tend to "overhear" things now and then, which I credit to my years of being the counselor and "listener", working very hard to pay attention to what was said, and how it was said. On the positive side, I believe that [...]
First of all, allow me to take a moment to congratulate myself for making it to Day 20 in my self-imposed, 30 day, blog-post challenge. There, a brief pat on the back using one of the stretches my PT person taught me Monday morning. Ah, much better. Now, about writing good mystery stories. I've found [...]
A quick note...if you need an example of an evil character, I recommend the person in charge of the TV here in the waiting room filled with people waiting for their colonoscopy. After what they’ve been through over the past 24 hours, and now seeing the TV showing commercials for Steak and Shake milkshakes on [...]
I spent a good part of my day thinking about boats. I have some meetings coming up where I will be talking about Disruption, the first book in the Emily Graham series, and the core of that story rides on a Mississippi River towboat. In fact, I had no idea about Emily Graham at all [...]
Question: Your characters seem like real people. How do you create your characters? Are they based on real people? First, thanks for the question and comment, I'm glad to hear those folks feel to you, too. I don't think there is one secret to creating characters. If there is, no one has told me about [...]
I have always believed in the power of story. That's one of the reasons I've spent most of my life as a storyteller and now story-writer. I've been thinking more about that over the past few weeks as I have talked with friends about the holidays they are celebrating based on their faith stories. I [...]
I stumbled across another example of where the ideas come from for the stories I create, so I thought I would write a "Part 2" to yesterday's post answering that question asked by folks who still believe there is some super-secret source writers use. I'll just add that I read this morning that when Theodore [...]
I often get that question about where the ideas come from for the things I write. Well, I've got a great example of how it works right now! I am not responding to a question in this post, but want to share something I stumbled across today that I plan to spend a lot more [...]
Question: What is your favorite quote? "I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult." - E. B. White A short one for today. Hey, it's almost Friday. How are you going to change the world this weekend?
